It is great fun offer these tantalizing tidbits, but still need to cover my aging academic ass in regard to the Burden/Bordens toponym. Where did I read about this issue a while ago? There are lots of names that drifted over time (Inskeeps to Inkskips, Moores Mill to Moss Mill).
Spung-Man:
I’m not sure there is enough fabric in the world to cover your “aging academic ass”
, but perhaps the following will provide you with a partial bit of modesty:
In Volume XXI of the
New Jersey Archives series—the volume that contains abstracts of the earliest deeds for East and West New Jersey—a check of the index under “Burden” will only refer you to index entries listed under “Borden,” indicating that the spelling of this surname was interchangeable. Hence the hill variously carrying the name “Borden” or “Burden” would be correct with either spelling. Although I have not taken the time to track down every survey, the preponderance of early land transactions under the name “Borden” involves a Benjamin Borden (Burden) of Middletown, Monmouth County, who purchased and sold lands in Salem County as a speculator.
Thomas F. Gordon, writing in his famous gazetteer of New Jersey, notes:
The forest known as the “Barrens,” runs here, producing much white oak and pine wood for market, which finds its way to Philadelphia by Alloways creek.
Numerous sources indicate that Borden’s Hill is the highest point in Salem County and the earliest published map—the 1849 map of Gloucester and Salem counties by Stansbie, Keily and Rea—seems to suggest so, since it shows the hill with an observatory on the top:
While I agree with you that Inskeep transitioned to Inskip, I disagree that Moss Mill began as Moore’s Mill. The builder of what we know as “Moss Mill” was a man named Robert Morss, not Moore.
Best regards,
Jerseyman
